


You Belong With Me

by sifuamelia



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Crush, Berlin (City), Berlin Wall, Big Sisters, Bisexual Male Character, Bisexuality, Brother-Sister Relationships, Crush at First Sight, Crushes, Declarations Of Love, Deutsch | German, Dork Jean Kirstein, Falling In Love, First Crush, First Love, Germany, Jealous Jean Kirstein, Marco Bott/Jean Kirstein-centric, Miscommunication, Multi, POV Bisexual Character, POV Jean Kirstein, Reunions, Secret Crush, Separate Childhoods, Separations, Soviet Union, Time Skips, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:50:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2583647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sifuamelia/pseuds/sifuamelia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's the year 1972, and five year-old Jean Kirstein looks out his bedroom window and is surprised to see another face looking back at him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Belong With Me

**Author's Note:**

> German is bolded + italicized when it's being written down or thought out. When spoken, it looks like normal dialogue.
> 
> English translations are italicized, no matter the context.

It's the year 1972, and five year-old Jean Kirstein looks out his bedroom window and is surprised to see another face looking back at him. Jean's first impression is kindness; his second is light. Because the boy in the window opposite his has an open, cheerful face filled up with large dark eyes, and his desk lamp casts a sort of halo — like the kind that those angels that his mother always talks about wear — upon his inky hair.

Jean blinks. He hasn't seen a kid his age in quite some time — he's got an older sister that will do anything to avoid him, and he's always been home-schooled. So he gives the other boy a tentative wave. The other boy waves back, pressing his chubby palms against the glass in earnest. Jean smiles. Then he waves again. They wave at each other for nearly fifteen minutes before the other boy disappears, taking with him the uncharacteristic smile that had begun to worm its way across Jean's face.

But then the boy reappears, and he's got a large sheet of blindingly white paper and a big fat green marker.  _ **Wie heißen Sie?**   _What's your name?__

Jean looks around frantically, eyes finally lighting upon his sister's desk. There's a stack of paper there, carefully saved up for months and months, and a nearly-dried black ballpoint.  ** _Es wird nicht schaden, wenn ich nehme nur eine,_** he reasons.  _It won't hurt if I only take one._

 **_Mein Name ist Jean._ ** __My name is Jean._ _

The boy waves again, his smile glowing even brighter than his desk lamp.  ** _Ich bin Marco!_** _ _I'm Marco!__

 ** _Marco._** Jean wears a silly grin, and it continues to stick, even when his sister returns and screams at him for using up the rest of her ink.  _ **Das ist ein schöner Name.**   _That's a nice name.__ And-

 ** _Ich wünschte, wir könnten zusammen spielen,_** he thinks over dinner, disinterestedly poking at his soggy vegetables (the ones that his mother's always telling him to appreciate, because they are very, _very_ lucky).  ** _Schade, es gibt eine Reihe von schmutzigen grauen Blöcke in meinem Weg._**

__I wish we could play together. _Too bad there's a bunch of dirty gray blocks in my way.__ _

 

* * *

 

By the time Jean turns nine, he and Marco have become best friends through an inexhaustible stack of white paper, and their friendship has pretty much saved Jean's life. Because living in the socialist bloc of Eastern Germany kind of sucks, and even a kid like Jean has begun to realize it. Everything changes, though, on the day that Marco, instead of writing a message, draws Jean a picture.

 

 

 ** _Was ist das?_ ** Jean writes.  _What's that?_

Marco grabs another sheet of paper and quickly scratches out a reply.  _ **Das ist, wie die Wand sieht aus meinem Fenster.**   _That's what I see out my window.__

 ** _Ich möchte Sie zeichnen meiner Seite, aber es ist nur grau,_** Jean explains.  _I would draw what's out my window, but it's only gray._

He can see Marco laughing.  _ **Möchten Sie zu einer anderen zu sehen?**   _Want to see another?__

_**Ja bitte!**   _Yes, please!__

 

 

 ** _Ich liebe die Farben,_** Marco explains.  ** _Auch wenn ich nicht die Worte zu verstehen._** _ _I love the colors,__ _b _ut I don't always know what the words mean.__

Before he really thinks about it, Jean responds,  _ **Ich wünschte, ich könnte Sie besuchen und sehen, daß es aus dem Fenster, zu.**  _ _I wish I could look out your window and see what you see._ Marco's smile is so huge that he can't help but to return it. In a world with very little to smile for, Marco always radiates the happiness he thrives on. 

 ** _Einmal,_**  the other boy writes. _**Und bald.**   _One day._ _And soon.__

 

* * *

 

They're thirteen years-old in 1980, and even though there's no sign yet that the Wall will fall, Jean's life changes forever. Because one day he comes home from work, and there's a girl in Marco's bedroom. 

 ** _Sie ist sehr schön,_** Jean reasons.  _She's very pretty._  The girl has a thick ponytail the color of the hard nuts that tend to clutter the streets in fall and eyes to match. And... curves. She has the kind of curves that Jean has always wanted to touch but has never had the means to. She's also sitting in Marco's lap, atop the desk and next to its sacred sunlit lamp, and when their lips touch, something inside of Jean shatters.

It hurts so badly that he leaves the curtains closed for the next week and a half. And when he can finally let Marco see him, all he writes is:  _ **Was ist ihr Name?** What's her name?_

Marco blinks, and even from the aching distance between them, Jean can see how unfairly long his dark eyelashes are.  ** _Das ist Sasha,_** he explains.  _ **Sie geht mit mir zur Schule.**   _That's Sasha._ _We go to school together.__

Jean draws in a deep breath and writes, _**Sie ist hübsch.**   _She's very pretty.__

Marco gives him a long, long look.

 

* * *

 

Exactly two years later, Jean returns home from the very same job that he had returned home from on that fateful day, but unlike last time, Marco's blinds are shut tight. Jean avoids his desk and hides in his bed instead. He doesn't want to know what they're doing. He doesn't want his heart to hurt again... even though it does anyway.

 

* * *

 

A week later, there's a sharp knock on the window, and Jean startles from the puddle of drool that he's been contributing to his soggy homework (he goes to formal school now) and nearly falls out of his desk chair. He throws open the curtains—

—and there's Marco. His window's open (for the very first time) and he's got a handful of pebbles. He proceeds to duck down quickly, but returns just as fast with a blank sheet of white paper.  _ **Wo bist du gewesen?!**   _Where've you been?!__

Jean's heart throbs. He grabs up the paper that he regards as his most important possession (besides the leaky ballpoint pen).  ** _Ich könnte das gleiche zu sagen,_** he writes.  _I could ask the same of you._

In response, Marco draws a giant question mark.

_**Sie Vorhänge geschlossen!**   _Your curtains were closed!__

Marco flips to a new sheet of paper.  ** _Entschuldigung,_** he explains.  _ **Sasha gedumpten mich.** Sorry. Sasha dumped me._

Suddenly, Jean's throbbing heart has grown wings.  ** _Es tut mir leid._**   _I'm sorry._ (It's the biggest lie that he's ever told.)

From her bed, his sister Hitch snorts. "Du bist ein schlechter Lügner, Jean." _You're a bad liar, Jean._

"Warum?" _Why?_

"Sie dümmsten Lächeln haben." _You're wearing the stupidest smile right now._ And then, in a horrifying turn of events, Hitch jumps out of bed and sticks her face close to the glass. She gives Marco a cheeky wave, and he waves back, having met her on occasion, which mostly happens when she gets home from her job and berates Jean for pretty much everything under the sun. It's not very funny for Jean, but Marco, an ever-amused audience, seems to get a kick out of it. Suddenly—

"Jean will dein Freund sein!" she shouts through the glass. _Jean wants to be your boyfriend!_

Marco leans through his open window in a precarious fashion that would make Jean cringe had Hitch not already done something so much more cringe-worthy. "Was?" he mouths, and then points to his ear. _What?_

Hitch gestures to Marco by pointer finger, then points at Jean, and then, using her hands, makes a heart. Jean simultaneously slams the curtains shut and tackles his idiot big sister to the floor.

 

* * *

 

It's 1987. They're twenty years-old, and Marco has just come home from university, and Jean has too much to tell him. Marco seems to willingly comply, and Jean desperately wants to ask him if he's missed him, but even after fifteen years, he still doesn't have the guts to write down that kind of question. So instead, he begins to tell Marco the story of a girl at work, Mikasa Ackerman.

 ** _Sie klingt wunderbar!_** writes Marco. _She sounds wonderful!_ He then adds an extra _!_ , his smile too large for Jean to handle.

 ** _Ja, aber sie hat mich verachtet!_** he rapidly writes back.  _She is, but she despises me!_ And then, before he can stop himself:  _ **Niemand wird jemals in mich verlieben.** No one's ever going to fall in love with me._

_**Sie wissen nicht, das ist sicher!** You don't know that for sure!_

_**Ziemlich sicher.** Pretty sure._

Marco pauses, a blush stealing across his face. It disappears so quickly that Jean wonders if he's imagined it.  _ **Ich hoffe, dass durch die Zeit, die wir treffen, jemanden zu lieben muss man.**   _I hope that when we meet, you'll have someone to love you.__

He pulls the blinds shut after that with a quick wave, and Jean's heart resumes its usual ache.

 

* * *

 

He has the craziest of ideas in 1988, and he's wondering that if they ever meet (and from the looks of the newspapers, it might be sooner than he'd once thought), he'll have ruined everything forever between them.

"Es ist einen Versuch wert," Hitch decides for him (they've been very nice to each other lately). _It's worth a shot._

"Okay." Using a spare piece of tape, he posts this message:  ** _Meine Seite der Mauer._ **_**Ich wünsche Ihnen konnte es sehen.**   _My side of the wall. I wish you could see it.__ And beneath it—

 

 

He closes his bedroom curtains and never reopens them.

 

* * *

 

One day in 1989, Jean runs into a young man at the grocery. His first impression is kindness; his second, light. They stare at each other for awhile, so Jean reaches into his coat and pulls out a piece of time-worn, water-stained paper.

_**Wie heißen Sie?**   _ _What's your name?___

"Ich bin Marco," whispers the other man, his eyes crinkling slightly. _I'm Marco._ For the first time, Jean realizes that Marco's voice is the most beautiful sound to ever grace this world, and that the other man's absolutely covered in freckles, and that he wants to touch every single one of them.

Marco then proceeds to rummage around in _his_ coat and pulls out a slightly fresher sheet of his own paper.  _ **Ich hoffe, dass durch die Zeit, die wir treffen, jemanden zu lieben muss man.**   _ _I hope that when we meet, you'll have someone to love you.___

"Glaubst du, ich habe?"

_Do you think I have?_

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably so historically inaccurate. And obnoxiously written — please forgive me. Also, excuse my Google Translate-level German. My best friend (who's German) is probably doing what normal uni students do on a Friday night (i.e., not writing fanfiction), so her input was unavailable. (Good for her.)
> 
> And Jean and Hitch being siblings is apparently a thing? As you can see, I've hopped on that bandwagon.


End file.
